Ok so I woke up this morning and took a look around. Yup, electricity still on, water comes out the tap, newspaper in the box, email/interwebs are up and running, still have a job, no asteroid craters in the yard...not much going on at all. All good....

Well, if it doesn't effect you directly it doesn't matter much. Good for you. I can live with a 10% cut in federal contracts (not happy about it though), but to the guy who lost his or her job because of it it matters - a lot.

See, I pay a shit more taxes now, and will most likely receive less work, and that means I will hire fewer programmers. But hey, go ahead China and hack away...

What's wrong with this country is that people who don't feel the pain don't give a shit. Oh, and I love how Obama didn't use the offer from the republicans to directly implement the cuts... nope, he decided to stay out of it and have the cuts blanket everything. Great leadership Mr. President.

This country needs the cuts and everyone needs to feel the pain. I was just saying we only cut what.... 85 billion?? thats a small drop in the bucket. If it caused all of this drama for a cut that small then the govt def wont get its act together before its too late.

I personally cant wait until entitlements get cut. Thats when things will really get interesting.

As for me, I am currently getting it up the ass from the IRS so I am glad a lot of their workers are getting unpaid vacations.

What was the first thing the president said on March 1st? "Due to the stubbornness of Republicans in congress the crippling cuts in military spending and other vital programs will take effect...the plan that I had put forward which most people agree was more than reasonable was rejected because republicans refuse to ask the wealthiest of Americans to pay a little bit more in taxes."

As I said before all of this is posturing and dramatization of the executive branch to create a demonizing narrative for the mindless masses to generate bullet points for mid term congressional elections to oust the Republican majority...

I like the present openess for closing tax loopholes but not having wanted anyhing to do with it when it was proposed by the GOP during the fiscal cliff 'debates' at the end of last year. Also, how letting the SS and payroll tax cuts expire is used as an out for not having raised taxes...simply because they were going back to their previous levels.

Yes, I'm all for cutting spending, but you have to go at it a smarter way than this. Our economy is still shit, so when you have federal contractors have to cut jobs, and raise taxes on top of that you will stall the economic recovery - big time. It is not gonna put in me in the poor house, and I can hardly complain myself, but the fact is, if these cuts effect our contracts I will hire fewer people. The stuff we do can hardly be outsourced to India or China.

Depending on what exactly you do in your particular industry, there is also a trickle down effect to suppliers. If they really wanted to cut some fat, they'd target the acquisition side. It is long overdue for an overhaul.

Can anyone name a major government program (or a small one for that matter) that achieved its purpose, solved a problem, addressed an issue and then was disbanded? Didn't think so, they all just continue to get bigger and bigger and, incredibly, cause growth in the population they serve. Imagine that. Chopping social welfare programs should actually do a better job of "fixing the problem" than continuing to fund them at ever higher levels. Yup, there will be some pain on the front end but, change is often uncomfortable and hard. A couple of percentage points decrease is chump change, we should have a goal of shrinking by much, much larger numbers.

These are going to have huge knock-on effects. Already, medicare reimbursements are below cost for many specialties (eg., family practice). On top of that, MOST hospitals in this country are run on very tight margins, given the declining reimbursements and increasing costs of doing business in the healthcare field. The end result will be less hospitals and providers taking medicare patients. I have already heard that patients have a hard time finding providers who take medicare in small towns - soon, we may see that almost no one, even in large cities, will accept medicare.

It's sad, because ultimately the burden is going to fall on the patient. The only other option will be for the government to force providers to accept medicare, at which point people will begin to leave the medical field in droves.

How about hospitals stop charging $50 for a gauze pack that cost around $5 retail? Or charging $5K for a CT scan that cost $250. There is no reason for that, and it drives the healthcare costs though the f@cking roof.

What they "charge", and what insurance companies actually pay, are two very different figures. Those figures that you quote are never, ever paid, and are only billed to uninsured folks who do not have the collective bargaining ability of a larger organization.

I won't argue against the fact that some hospitals are making large profits, but many are also struggling with decreased reimbursements. New York City is a prime example, where many well-known hospitals have shut their doors over the past 5 or 10 years.

Ultimately, this cut will really hit the specialties with low margins, like family medicine.

Theres going to be no more teachers, fire fighters, or police if we decrease spending by .05%!!!!!

OMFG!!!!

He needs it to be bad, wide spread, overwhelming in order to provide ammo to dem mid-term election strategy. He's faking a bi-partisan attitude the last week or two but when the rep's don't cooperate he'll go right back to blame game, divisive attacks.

He needs it to be bad, wide spread, overwhelming in order to provide ammo to dem mid-term election strategy. He's faking a bi-partisan attitude the last week or two but when the rep's don't cooperate he'll go right back to blame game, divisive attacks.

Ahhh makes sense.

I wonder if America will be dumb enough to give him back control of both the House and Senate again after the mid term elections.... I personally think the country is that dumb.

Obama with control of both houses of Congress and not having to worry about re-election would be very interesting.

So you are buying into the fear mongering? You do know this is not an actual "cut" but rather a decrease of the increase in spending? Confusing I know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAM3S

lol its funny people STILL buy into the fear mongering.

Theres going to be no more teachers, fire fighters, or police if we decrease spending by .05%!!!!!

OMFG!!!!

Except that there are a large number of people across various industries and professions that have already been feeling impacts from sequestration. That started last year as government entities, companies, and such started planning ahead to soften impacts from the sequester. Fear mongering or not, there have already been effects to peoples' lives and wallets as of 2012.